Living with trauma can feel like a constant battle; a body stuck in survival mode; chronic tension or pain, a mind that won’t quiet, a heart that struggles to feel safe. Trauma leaves an imprint that goes deeper than words alone can reach, and healing often requires more than just talking through it.
Somatic Experiencing (SE) offers a different path. Developed by Dr. Peter Levine, SE is a gentle, body-centered approach that helps you reconnect with your body’s innate ability to heal. Instead of reliving painful memories, SE focuses on the present-moment sensations in your body, guiding you to redirect the trapped energy of trauma without overwhelm.
SE supports:
🌿 Feeling calm and grounded in your own body, instead of constantly on edge.
🦋 Responding to stress instead of reacting, reclaiming control over your emotions.
🌿 Experiencing fewer flashbacks or intrusive memories as your nervous system learns to reset and regulate.
🦋 Gently releasing physical tension and pain that has weighed you down for years.
🌿 Increasing resilience and discovering a sense of safety within yourself; space where you can breathe, connect, and just be.
SE can help you move through the lingering effects of trauma in a way that feels manageable.
Instead of pushing you to relive the pain, it honors your body’s wisdom, guiding you to release what no longer serves you. For many, it’s a transformative experience; an opportunity to reconnect with a deeper sense of self, resilience, and wholeness.
Call Stephanie for a free consultation: 209-614-7532
SE is particularly supportive for adults with complex PTSD and individuals who have experienced ongoing or repeated trauma, often beginning in childhood.
Many who suffer from complex PTSD develop complicated coping methods in order to get through the day. Ultimately, none of these attempts to feel better are successful. People get caught living in survival mode, which is a hard, frustrating, unsatisfying and expensive way to live. Over time, survival oriented living can contribute to chronic pain, chronic illness, feelings of helplessness, isolation and negative feelings toward ourselves.
Did you experience one or more of the following?
- Prenatal distress, difficult birth, serious illness or hospitalization as an infant
- Separation from parent or caregiver in childhood, including adoption or foster care
- Early trauma, like neglect or abuse, before the age of 6
- Event trauma after the age of 6
There’s a connection between trauma and chronic stress, pain and illness.
Trauma occurs when we feel overwhelmed by a single or repeating experience. Overwhelm occurs when too much happens too fast. Because they are too much to deal with at the time, incomplete trauma responses are held in the body waiting, sometimes for decades, to be supported, understood and integrated.
Very early trauma, before the age of 3, occurs before the development of language. For this reason, those of us who experienced trauma very early in life may have no conscious memory of it and/or have tremendous difficulty talking about it. In this case, our memory of the trauma exists primarily as uncomfortable sensation.
You can learn to feel comfortable and at ease within, even if you have never felt this before.
There is a natural process that our bodies are able to go through in order to integrate trauma responses that are held in the body and return our nervous system to its healthy state.
Somatic Experiencing is a highly effective way to support this process – moving out of the trauma response, restoring a sense of balance to the nervous system and returning a sense of health, aliveness and wellbeing to our lives.
No matter what your life story has been, you can engage this natural ability within yourself.
Signs of a healthy nervous system include: the ability to feel both relaxed and alert, emotional stability, the abiltiy to heal from or better manage chronic pain and chronic health conditions and the ability to react appropriately to unexpected events in our daily lives.
If you’re seeking compassionate, effective support in healing from complex PTSD, Somatic Experiencing could be the gentle, powerful way to reclaim your peace.
Somatic Experiencing moves at a pace appropriate to your needs. Gentle, supportive touch may be used in our sessions, but this is not necessary. SE can be included in our Rolfing® sessions.
Call Stephanie for a free consultation: 209-614-7532
“I have had numerous sessions with Stephanie in order to heal early childhood trauma through Somatic Experiencing and NARM. She is an experienced, compassionate and extremely knowledgeable healer. The safety and support she’s given me during our sessions have helped me to shift a number of my deeply wired-in trauma patterns. This is huge.
I am extremely grateful for Stephanie’s help and have the highest respect and regard for her. I know she is deeply committed to her clients and has produced amazing results for many of them. How do I know that? Because she has done that for me. I highly recommend her as both a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and a NARM Practitioner.”
Barbara Stafford
